Villa Valmarana ai Nani Historical Timeline

Origins

The main house was built in the 1660s for the Muttoni family, an ordinary country house of no architectural pretension whatever. Giustino Valmarana bought it in 1715 and added the guest wing, the foresteria, and the stable block.

Turning points

In 1757 Valmarana brought in Giambattista Tiepolo, then the most sought-after painter in Europe, to fresco both buildings. He was assisted by his son Giandomenico, then twenty-nine, who was given the foresteria more or less to himself.

Influential people

The division turned out to matter. Giambattista painted heroic literature in full late-Baroque grandeur; Giandomenico painted peasants eating, carnival crowds and rustic life. It is one of the clearest visible moments of the eighteenth century turning away from grand manner toward ordinary life.

Cultural evolution

The nickname ai Nani -- "of the dwarves" -- comes from the seventeenth-century stone dwarf statues along the garden wall, a common enough Veneto garden convention wrapped in an invented local legend.

Present-day significance

Still owned by the Valmarana family and part of Vicenza's UNESCO inscription. Both fresco cycles are in place and in their original rooms, which is much rarer than it sounds.